UPS has offered more concessions to the European Commission to secure regulatory approval forits planned €5.16 billion acquisition of TNT Express, according to several similar news agency
reports.The US company submitted a new offer on Monday to the Brussels-based organisation whichapparently added several more countries to a list of about 12 where businesses might be disposed ofin order to satisfy EU competition concerns, the agencies reported, citing people close to thematter.
A UPS spokeswoman told CEP-Research: “We are in discussions with the European Commission toaddress their concerns and are not going into details beyond that.”
Reuters said that the latest offer came after the European Commission indicated an earlierproposal to sell warehouses and customer bases in about 15 countries, mainly in eastern Europe, wasnot sufficient to address competition concerns. UPS and TNT had offered to sell certain assets andgive competitors access to their air and ground networks in order to overcome the regulator’sconcerns.
The European Commission has asked competitors and customers for responses to the latestconcessions by the end of today (December 19). It currently expects to take a formal decision onthe UPS-TNT merger by February 5. Both UPS and TNT expect the deal to gain clearance and go aheadearly next year.
